STYNP | Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Immediately inside the main gate of Tianmu Academy was the long row of training grounds where the entrance examinations had been held.

Outside the inner gate were only Baekam Hall, where registration had taken place, and Black Rock Hall, which had been used as a waiting area.

Up to this point, the academy was an area that outside visitors could freely enter and leave.

Now I understood what Captain Baekung had meant when he said that if we wanted to fight someone, we should drag them inside the academy or take them outside the city.

During the few days I had spent in Luoyang, I had heard that even when martial artists got into arguments at inns, they would settle their disputes with a sparring match here.

But beyond the inner gate was a completely different world.

Only martial arts instructors, teachers, students, and workers were allowed into that private area.

Events such as the Tianmu Gathering and Martial Star Festival, which outsiders were allowed to watch, were all held in the training grounds outside.

Because of that, none of the merchants in Luoyang knew anything about what happened inside the academy.

“You’re going straight back to the Ice Palace, right?”

“Yes.”

“Be careful on the way!”

“Yes. You take care too, Miss… Um, please stay healthy.”

“I don’t know if I’ll have time to come back during vacation. I’ll send you letters.”

I said goodbye to Captain Baekung in front of the academy.

Then, at Baekam Hall, which I had visited before, I exchanged my admission token for a student name plaque.

Unlike the admission token, which had been handsome enough to use as decoration, the name plaque was simply a small wooden tablet with my name carved into it.

“Welcome to the academy!”

The senior student I had met last time smiled broadly and opened the inner gate for us.

“Wow!”

An enormous collection of buildings stretched out before me, so vast that I couldn’t even see the end.

Flags bearing the names of each building fluttered in the wind, and each building had a large training ground beside it, spaced far apart from the others.

Just how huge is this place?

The academy had been built around a mountain, so there were also many buildings scattered along the mountainside, almost as if they had been placed on different levels.

Do I have to go all the way up there every time I need to move somewhere?

It suddenly reminded me of my university days, when I once messed up my course schedule and had to sprint from the bottom of a hill to the top during a break.

Of course, I could use movement techniques here, so I would be able to travel much faster.

But the academy was even larger than that, so I would still have to be careful about getting around.

“Aren’t the senior students entering the academy with us today?”

I was puzzled because the only students serving as guides seemed to be the few people from Baekam Hall.

“Ah, yes! The current students will join us ten days from now.”

The senior student who was about to close the inner gate answered after hearing me mutter to myself.

I was about to thank him.

But he gave us a meaningful smile and pushed us inside.

Leaving the seniors behind, all the new students entering the academy today followed the main road toward the center.

“…”

My mouth fell open.

There was a huge open space that looked like a banquet hall.

Three enormous dining tables were arranged there.

And spread across them was an incredible feast.

So we’re having the entrance ceremony outdoors while eating?

“Gasp! Tangerines… Oh my gosh! Strawberries, too…!”

There were dishes I recognized and others I had never seen before.

But my eyes were completely captured by the fresh fruit I had been searching for ever since arriving in the Central Plains.

“Suryeo, do you like fruit?”

Maeng Ryeongji, who had arrived earlier and saved us seats, casually placed a hand on my shoulder.

We had already met several times before the entrance ceremony, so I happily sat beside her.

“Hmm… I suppose I do. It was difficult to get in the Northern Sea.”

In my previous life, I hadn’t particularly gone out of my way to eat fruit.

But considering my current life, I supposed it was fair to say that I liked it.

“Really? If you ever visit the Beast Palace, I’ll treat you to as much as you want!”

How kind.

They prepared all this food just for the new students?

Before coming here, I had imagined something like the Demon Academy from novels.

I had even worried that the moment I entered, they might make us stand in a horse stance for hours.

But seeing all this food immediately made my tension disappear.

“Eat as much as you like. The cooks worked very hard to prepare all this for the new students.”

Several of the martial arts instructors I had seen during the entrance examination were wandering around and encouraging us to eat.

Peng Jung-geol was there, too, as well as the unnamed instructor who had refereed Eunhyun’s matches.

Apparently, they were some of the instructors responsible for the new students.

“Thank you for the meal!”

I started with the fruit to cleanse my palate, then began sampling all sorts of dishes I could reach.

Perhaps they had prepared food from all across the Central Plains.

Some dishes were extremely spicy, while others had such a strange, bitter taste that I couldn’t even figure out what I was eating.

Unlike me, Maeng Ryeongji had very specific tastes.

She insisted on eating only duck.

“Miss Seol!”

I also met Sowoon here.

When I asked whether he had encountered any problems at Black Rock Hall, he said that Radiant Light Sword, whom we had met at the Yu Family Manor, had come three days later to verify his admission token.

After that, everything had been settled.

Apparently, he had been allowed to stay there until the entrance ceremony if he wanted, so he had remained there to save money.

“Th-the person beside you…”

Sowoon looked slightly startled when he saw Maeng Ryeongji’s appearance.

“Oh, she’s a new friend I made. Her name is Maeng Ryeongji, and she’s the same age as me. And this is Sowoon. I met him on the way here.”

“Where are you from?”

“Um… the Yu Family Manor… But I didn’t learn their martial arts or anything…”

“The Yu Family Manor?”

“Eek!”

The moment Sowoon mentioned a family Maeng Ryeongji had never heard of, her expression immediately relaxed.

“So you’re not one of those Nine Great Sects people! Good! I’m Maeng Ryeongji of the Beast Palace!”

She cheerfully slapped Sowoon on the back.

I understood that she was wary of the Nine Great Sects.

But honestly, she seemed to care about people’s affiliations more than anyone I had ever met.

Before even a quarter of an hour had passed, every seat was filled.

“Can I sit here? Is this seat free?”

“Ah, yes.”

“Where are you from? I’m from Xi’an. Luoyang seems even busier.”

The students who had met during the entrance ceremony greeted one another and began becoming friends.

The more shy children awkwardly picked at their food.

“Miss, please wait a moment. I’ll wipe the chair for you.”

Miss?

Why is a fellow student calling her that?

Are they master and servant?

Sowoon called me “Miss” too, but that had happened naturally because of the circumstances.

The atmosphere between those two was clearly different.

Many of the students who had received recommendation tokens already seemed to know one another.

But the three people wearing matching blue clothes were particularly conspicuous.

I hadn’t deliberately chosen the seat, but the students I had seen during the entrance examination gradually gathered around the area where Maeng Ryeongji and I were sitting.

Meanwhile, the other two tables became divided.

The students connected to the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Families naturally gathered together and chatted among themselves.

They really are dividing into factions this openly.

Twelve students entered through the entrance examination, including Eunhyun…

And there are a little over forty others?

I kept glancing toward the instructors, wondering when they would say something.

But they simply encouraged the students to eat first, explaining that the Head of the Academy had deliberately given the new students some time to relax and enjoy their meal.

By the time more than half the food on the tables had disappeared—

“Hohoho. It seems that another group of talented young martial artists has entered the academy this year.”

An old monk wearing a magnificent robe appeared.

When did he get there?

I was startled.

I hadn’t sensed his presence at all before he spoke.

But the moment I became aware of him, I felt as if the air around me had suddenly tightened.

“Gasp!”

“Master Seongak!”

Someone shouted.

I remembered that the Head of Tianmu Academy was Master Seongak, a monk from Shaolin.

Master Seongak was a great hero of the War Between the Orthodox and Unorthodox Factions.

When the Demon Sect rose to power, he had led Shaolin monks to establish a front line.

After the war, he used his own wealth to build the academy so that he could help rebuild the martial world and educate the next generation.

Even his clothing didn’t look like that of an ordinary monk.

It was certainly a monk’s robe, but thick golden threads were densely embroidered throughout it, making it look incredibly luxurious at first glance.

His atmosphere was different from what I had vaguely imagined.

But one thing was certain.

He was no ordinary person.

The lively atmosphere of the banquet changed instantly.

“Hoho. I would prefer it if you students called me Head of the Academy rather than Master.”

“Yes, Head of the Academy!”

The students answered loudly.

He wore a kind smile.

But everyone was looking at him with a mixture of excitement and nervousness after seeing a legendary hero from the stories standing right in front of them.

“You all had a good, filling meal, didn’t you?”

“Yes!”

“Anyone who hasn’t eaten should confess right now.”

Perhaps Master Seongak sensed how tense everyone was, because he made a joke.

Naturally, nobody raised their hand.

Several students burst out laughing, and the atmosphere immediately became more relaxed.

Master Seongak chuckled and walked between the tables where the students were sitting.

I thought he had bent down slightly and stared closely at my face when he passed in front of me.

But that must have just been my imagination, right?

Since the friend sitting beside me had nearly caused a fight before we had even entered the academy, I was becoming overly conscious of everything.

Master Seongak stood in the middle of the cheerful banquet hall and smiled gently.

“I put a poison called Scatter-Qi Poison into your food.”

“…?”

He had just greeted us.

He had asked whether we’d eaten well.

Surely the next thing he was supposed to say was something like:

Make sure you eat well and train hard.

I was so tense that I wondered if I had heard him incorrectly.

Scatter-Qi Poison.

It was a poison that disrupted and scattered a martial artist’s internal energy.

I knew what it was.

But why was he suddenly talking about it?

I hadn’t noticed any strange taste at all.

The delicious food we’d just been eating was poisoned?

“Guh!”

Someone suddenly made a loud sound and vomited blood.

The other students besides me probably tried to circulate their internal energy as well.

While their internal energy remained inside their dantians, there was no obvious difference, so they hadn’t noticed anything.

But the moment they tried to circulate their energy, it strangely scattered.

As for the student who had just vomited blood, perhaps he had tried too hard to pull all the energy from his dantian at once and disrupted the circulation of qi and blood that was maintaining his body’s balance.

“Hahaha. Let me teach you all a lesson.”

Master Seongak smiled.

“If you want to survive in Tianmu Academy… no, if you want to survive in the harsh martial world, you shouldn’t casually eat food given to you by other people.”

The great hero of the Orthodox martial world actually says something like that?

After he was the one who prepared the food and told us to eat as much as we wanted?

“However, Tianmu Academy has kindly prepared an opportunity for you careless young people.”

He walked past the student who had collapsed and continued smiling.

“Now, everyone, turn over the name plaques you received earlier.”

The Head of the Academy pointed toward the wooden tablets hanging from the students’ waists.

They were the plaques we had received after handing in our admission tokens at Baekam Hall earlier.

“If you wet them with water, writing will appear. There is an antidote written there.”

“…!”

“The Medicine Immortal worked very hard to prepare this for today’s entrance ceremony. Hoho!”

He laughed.

“Even if you can’t find the antidote, you don’t need to worry too much. There may be some differences depending on the person, but the poison will naturally leave your body within a month at the latest.”

…So Tianmu Academy doesn’t just shower its students with spiritual medicines.

The Scatter-Qi Poison itself couldn’t possibly be easy to make.

Neither could its antidote.

And they went through all this just for an initiation ceremony?

“Still, I recommend that you detoxify yourselves if possible. It may be somewhat difficult to travel back and forth between the dormitories without your internal energy.”

Master Seongak raised a finger and pointed toward the middle of the mountain.

Several flags were fluttering there.

Wait… Are those the dormitories?

For martial artists who could use internal energy, the mountain wasn’t particularly impressive.

But thinking about my previous life…

It would probably take me at least two or three hours of huffing and puffing just to climb up there.

“What? That’s ridiculous…”

“My internal energy really is scattering!”

“What is going on?!”

The students fell into confusion and began running around in panic.

Even Maeng Ryeongji, who had been confidently telling me all sorts of things she had heard from her older brother, clearly hadn’t expected this.

Then—

BOOOOM!

A tremendous sound rang out.

Master Seongak waved his hand.

The inner gate of the academy closed with a thunderous crash.

“Well then, everyone, search carefully.”

He smiled.

“I sincerely welcome you all to Tianmu Academy!”

Just as suddenly as he had appeared, Master Seongak disappeared.

His magnificent monk’s robe fluttered behind him as he vanished from sight.